Lithium-ion batteries are widely used for portable electronics and electronic cars because of their long life and durability compared to lead acid and NiMH batteries. Lithium-ion batteries have a very high energy density, which has led to their increasing usage in applications ranging from mobile electronics to cars, airplanes, and even grid storage. Although relatively uncommon, it is possible for these batteries to fail catastrophically due to their high energy density, and the flammability/combustibility of the battery components.
Thus, lithium-ion batteries create certain risks, including overheating, failure, or fire due to overcharge, over-discharge, or short-circuiting. In general, these risks can result in thermal runaway of the battery cell. This can be particularly problematic in large-scale and mission critical applications where larger battery systems may be employed. Even if one battery cell of the battery system fails, neighboring cells can be damaged in a catastrophic feedback loop, thereby magnifying the initial failure event.
Thermal runaway occurs when a critical or threshold temperature in the battery cell is reached and triggers a chain of exothermic reactions that in turn lead to further temperature increases and accelerate reaction kinetics. Although the critical temperature may only be between 100° C.-200° C., the temperature of the cell can increase by hundreds of degrees in only a few seconds during a thermal runaway. For example, during thermal runaway, cell temperatures can reach 400° C. and as high as 900° C. Further, the battery can release a burnable and potentially toxic gas during thermal runaway. See Golubkov, Andrey W. et. al., THERMAL-RUNAWAY EXPERIMENTS ON CONSUMER LI-ION BATTERIES WITH METAL-OXIDE AND OLIVIN-TYPE CATHODES, RSC Advances, The Royal Society of Chemistry 2014, Issue 7, 2014, published Nov. 27, 2013, available at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2013/ra/c3ra45748f, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Battery manufacturers or users of large, multi-cell battery packs can encounter the problem of catastrophic thermal runaway failure. This failure can occur when a single cell of a multi-cell battery pack fails and a cascading reaction is triggered. As a result of the cascading reaction, this failure can cause the entire battery pack to lose full energy storage capability during its lifetime of operation.
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